I am delighted that you and your little friends are interested in the
matter of salting the streets, and that you are eager to put a stop to
such cruelty.
In the first place, you can help by telling every one about it, and by
getting people, old and young, interested. Do you know that not one person
to whom I have spoken about it--aside from Dr. Johnson, the people at the
A.S.P.C.A., and Mr. Harison--knew anything about it? Strange, was it not?
A good many things are permitted because people do not know just how
dreadful they are.
As to the method of learning just where salt has been used, I know only
the one of which the article tells you, and that is: if there is snow or
ice in other places, and the tracks are covered with water, then you may
know that there is a reason for it. And inasmuch as the water would be
twenty degrees below freezing, I believe that you could determine the
presence of salt by means of the mercury. If you had a thermometer which
would register that number of degrees, and were to plunge it into the
slush, the sensitive mercury would tell the story.
As to the person to whom you should complain: at any of the offices of the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The New York Society is
at 10 East 22d Street, and there are branches or agents of the Society in
nearly every town of importance.
Yours sincerely,
IZORA C. CHANDLER.